Johnson Marketing Professor Earns Research Honor

Paper Coauthored by Sachin Gupta Named Among Top 20 in Marketing Science

A paper coauthored by Sachin Gupta, Ph.D. ’93, the Henrietta Johnson Louis Professor of Management and professor of marketing, has been ranked among the 20 most influential articles in the field of marketing science.

The recognition is based on a study in the International Journal of Research in Marketing that analyzed 5,500 peer-reviewed articles published in five top-tier journals between 1982 and 2003. The study's coauthors used citation counts and a survey of academics, marketing managers, and business consultants to determine which articles had an impact on both research and practice.

The article Gupta coauthored, "Is 75 percent of the Sales Promotion Bump Due to Brand Switching? No, Only 33 percent Is," was ranked as 14 on the list of 20 articles that have had a dual impact on academics and practice. The 2003 article, published in the Journal of Marketing Research, was coauthored with Harald J. van Heerde at Massey University in New Zealand and the late Dick R. Wittink at the Yale School of Management and formerly a professor of marketing at Johnson.

The study noted that the article Gupta coauthored was one of three that were "notable exceptions" among the top 20 because they had "a significantly higher impact on practice than academics." The article was also the most recently published on the list.

"I've always hoped that my work has some meaning for business," Gupta said. "To get somebody doing this scientifically and saying, 'Yes — we have the evidence,' has been a validation."

The article challenged the prevailing wisdom that when a brand is promoted, 75 percent of its increase in sales comes from consumers switching from other brands. Gupta and his coauthors showed that only 33 percent of the increased sales results from consumers leaving other brands. The remainder comes from consumers stockpiling the product and increasing consumption.

The research has implications for both competing brand manufacturers and retailers, Gupta said. "The competing brands need to feel less threatened, and that in general would mean the intensity of competition would be reduced," he said.

Retailers will also gain more from promotions because while the product being promoted generates more revenue, other brands are not experiencing such a huge dip in sales, Gupta said.